


Xenodiplomacy is So Easy

by inklesspen



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Bodyguard Romance, Bulges and Nooks, F/M, Humorous Use of a Nookworm, Inappropriate Use of a Decorative Ribbon, Interspecies Sex, Masturbation, Military Uniforms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 06:22:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4252695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inklesspen/pseuds/inklesspen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before I begin, I want it on the record that I was operating with a plan the entire time and any suggestions to the contrary are the basest slander.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xenodiplomacy is So Easy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oxfordRoulette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordRoulette/gifts).



> I'd like to thank Lizardlicks and Addy for betaing this nonsense.

Before I begin, I want it on the record that I was operating with a plan the entire time and any suggestions to the contrary are the basest slander. When I arrived on Alternia, the empress was not yet on planet and according to Alternian protocol, the embassy does not technically exist until the ambassador has been received by the Empress or her designate. Unfortunately, her designate had been rendered _hors de combat_ in one of the silly succession struggles these people keep having, which meant I was obliged to wait in the secure hotel suite for her flagship to return.

On the third night I had become sufficiently bored that I shrouded myself in a notice-me-not field and snuck past the minder Imperial Security had left in the lobby. By "night", of course, I mean that the rosy fingers and other assorted appendages of dawn had begun to creep over the horizon, trolls being a nocturnal species, but the city's UV filter kept the inhabitants from being broiled alive by the system's primary.

The UV filter was a recent introduction, I had been informed; previous administrations had taken a more utilitarian view of the planet's precarious habitability, but the restoration of the capital city was one of the new empress's more popular reforms, seeing as it afforded the wealthier members of her species an opportunity to consolidate their lineages' places in the history books. Hardly a day passed without some street being re-re-named in honor of some wet-navy admiral or other, while bribes flowed like water into the pockets of minor bureaucrats and ale flowed almost as freely into the throats of the largely lower-class construction workers.

Accordingly, while my robot assistant engaged in a recreational exploration of the city's less public computing networks, I followed an off-duty construction crew into Low City — the sign proclaiming its new designation as "Oletra Makhai Historical District" had been expertly defaced by at least two gangs and a crew of guerrilla marketers — and thence into a dive bar whose name, I am given to understand, translates roughly as "May We Pleasantly Achieve Oblivion".

I slipped past the bouncer, dropped my shroud, and surveyed what was no doubt Alternia's finest drinking establishment. Against the far wall, some number of trolls were playing the local equivalent of billiards or darts, a game which involved the occasional eating of its still-protesting biological game pieces. Bets were being exchanged. I'm quite certain I even saw that old classic "so how does this game work again?" ploy; I commended the hustler to whichever local gods were listening and turned my attention to the bartender.

The art and craft of imbibing intoxicants for entertainment is, unsurprisingly, different from species to species. However, according to the précis I had been given, the local intoxicants were alcohol-based and reasonably safe, provided I stayed away from the moonshine. I quickly determined that would not be difficult, because this upscale establishment had only a single beverage on tap, with ordering as simple as sidling up to the bar and placing cash on the barrelhead. The bartender, a broadly built woman whose blue eyes were in contrast to the red sigil painted on her shirt, regarded the coin with suspicion. "Three caegers," she informed me.

"The party before me paid a caeger each," I replied. Still, I placed down another of the well-worn coins featuring the late Empress's likeness.

The bartender shoved them back at me. "They belonged here. You, I've never seen before. Three caegers or I call Brutus." I shrugged and paid.

The local brew was certainly drinkable, but I doubted it would win any awards back home. Still, I had developed a pleasant little buzz and was a bit into my refill by the time one of the living gamepieces hurtled across the room to plop, against all probability, into my mug, where it exhibited an brief and sadly fatal reaction to the alcohol content. I wiped the beer out of my eyes with one arm, just in time to be confronted by a handful of angry trolls. A short and entirely predictable conversation ensued, the details whereof I shall not burden you. Suffice to say that it was with alarming speed that the field of our discourse was widened to include personal weaponry and I was forced to use my wands when violence was offered upon my person.

Unfortunately, this brought me to the attention of the bar's other patrons, many of whom apparently felt that rendering the aggressor unconscious and concussed instead of dead was best viewed as a sign of weakness. While I disabused them of this notion, some of the patrons took the opportunity to retreat under tables or out the back door; I recall locking eyes with a young troll who had barricaded himself in a booth. He had the neck fins common to the species' aristocrats, which seemed unusual for a bar like this, and I felt strangely like he was assessing my ability, before he turned his attention back to his smartphone.

At this point I began a retreat toward the front door. It was momentarily barred by the substantial bulk of the bouncer and his blunt weapon of choice, but this was quickly remedied. I stepped over the unconscious bouncer and took to my heels.

In the dim light of the city's midmorning, the distance back to my hotel seemed unfairly to have been extended, though perhaps this was merely the adrenal response dying down. The empty streets only served to underscore the precarious position Alternia held in galactic politics. They'd attacked us on First Contact, which is not unheard of, but even the most tenacious species usually shy away from total war; the unfortunate ones who are unable to grow out of that phase tend to render their planets uninhabitable before they develop viable space travel. However, the previous empress (the ruling caste are allegedly very long-lived) had managed to unify her species and direct their aggression outwards, a policy that contributed, in the end, to her downfall. The new empress sued for peace and when the United Worlds cast around for someone willing to go and play diplomat, well, I was the only useful idiot who stuck up my hand.

The sober facts of the matter were these: Her Illustrious Coruscation (for so the empress had styled herself) had de facto control of only about a third of her empire's wide-ranging fleets. Another third, under the control one of the previous empress's consorts, was in active rebellion, and the remainder was mostly sitting back to see where the chips fell. Any peace treaty I negotiated here had only the barest chance of being honored, but my government (ever optimistic) desired to save the trolls from self-immolation. For my part, I was looking forward to writing an impressive paper based on my time here, but if that were to happen, I'd need to improve my research methods.

Embroiled in these thoughts, I was surprised as the ImpSec lackey was when I ran into her in the hotel lobby. She stammered out an apology and ran off into a back room. I felt tempted to go stick my nose in her business (certainly all in the name of research), but I headed back up to my suite.

Jadebot greeted me at the door. "Hi, Rose, did you have fun?" She leaned down to give me a holographic peck on the cheek. Jadebot's physical body was a metallic sphere about 2cm in diameter, but when we were in private she was free to use her holographic emitters and effector fields to behave more like the human whose brain had formed her AI core.

I patted roughly where her shoulder would have been and threw myself into a dignified slouch on the couch. "You should have been there, Jade. Me and you, just like old days at undergrad, showing up everyone else. It would have been so much fun." I slipped my wands into the charger on the side table and drew a magazine over my face as I lay down. I was still annoyed the only Alternian publication I'd managed to buy was a glorified gossip rag (glorified in that they were permitted to write about the empress's romantic entanglements without being shut down or murdered, which I gathered was an exceptionally rare accomplishment). Tomorrow I would definitely have to locate a bookstore. Jade began to tell me about her discoveries in the planetary nets, but somewhere in there I fell asleep.

I woke with a stiff neck. I still hadn't gotten used to sleeping on the couch, but I wasn't interested in experimenting with the local sleeping apparatus (which allegedly involved the use of psychoactive drugs; I would have to verify that later) and the hotel staff had been scandalized when I attempted to order a bed sent up to my room. I ran my fingers through my hair to get it in some semblance of order and opened the door for the room service cart. Instead of the cart, the first thing I saw was the back of an immaculately stiffened, blindingly white uniform jacket. The troll in the uniform was only a little taller than my 165 centimeters, meaning his shoulders were just at my eye level, and what shoulders they were, with epaulettes set off with tyrian purple piping. He was standing at rigid attention (to which phrase I inwardly gave a little giggle) and clearly had been for some time. Against my best intentions, I found my gaze drift downward toward the troll's trousers. The tailoring could hardly have been better designed to show off his butt. I clapped a hand over my mouth and shut the door, then spun and leaned against it. "Jade," I said as I slid down to the ground, "why is there a troll in exquisite full dress uniform standing guard outside our door?"

"Well, it looks like someone noticed you went out on the town," she said. She projected my workspace screen for me at eye level.

> conquestsCompleted [CC] began trolling tellurianTheorist [TT]  
>  CC: )(------ELLO, Miss Ambassatrix!  
>  CC: I )(eard you )(ad an interesting dawn last day.  
>  CC: I've taken t)(e li-boat-y of assigning one of my t)(res)(ecutioners to keep you safe; I s)(oal do want you to survive to meet me.  
>  CC: Try not to get into any moray 20-on-1 fig)(ts until I arrive! Bye!  
>  conquestsCompleted [CC] ceased trolling tellurianTheorist [TT]

I felt momentarily blindsided by the revelation that the Empress of All Alternia, Terror of the Stars, Wielder of the 2x3dent, et cetera et cetera, used instant messaging protocols instead of at least a cryptographically signed email, but Alternia was a world of many wonders, as I remarked to Jade.

She responded by projecting a little wireframe model of the guard, spinning in a lazy circle. I noticed some details that had escaped me before, like the beret (was that a cultural import or did they invent that on their own?) nestled between his stubby horns. "Lt. Karkat Vantas, 1st Threshecutioner Corps" blinked in a little callout box next to his shoulders (dear god, his shoulders).

"He arrived a few hours ago and he's been standing there ever since. Kinda cute, right?" Jade flipped herself upside down and stuck her head between me and the wireframe.

My stomach growled. "Did at any time the room service cart also arrive?"

"Yep!" She nodded and spun right-side up again, clipping through the floor. "Go shower and I'll negotiate with Captain Tightpants out there for release of the breakfast."

The water sluicing over me served to sober me slightly. Whatever already slim chances I had of going out unnoticed (as one of perhaps five aliens on the planet) would certainly be reduced further by the presence of an Imperial bodyguard, however glorious his shoulders. Yet perhaps all was not yet lost? I'd have to see if I could get him to dress a little less conspicuously; if so, a native guide would be an asset.

When I got out of the shower and had gotten dressed, breakfast had indeed arrived; one of the local foods, a close enough analogue to scallion pancakes, except with a much higher protein content. The dipping sauce was bitter, but it paired well. After the fight earlier in the day I was famished and I quickly dealt with the meal in a polite and ladylike fashion. I am afraid I repaid Jade poorly for her earlier efforts on behalf of my fragile meat body; she was eager to describe her plans for further reducing the planetary networks to her whims, but I lacked the training to follow them in the detail she wished to give and I felt as if I ought to open communications with Lt. Vantas, so I made encouraging noises and asked her to please leave the Alternians a couple of servers to rub together for old time's sake. Fortunately she didn't take it too badly.

I opened the door again. Vantas was still standing there, though of course he must have moved at some point for the cart to have been brought in. I took one more chance to discreetly admire his butt, then cleared my throat. "Hello, Lt. Vantas, is it? I'm Rose Lalonde."

He turned and looked at me and a remarkable series of expressions flashed across his face; irritation, first, then curiosity, then a practiced sort of boredom, and finally a detached emotionless professionalism. "Hello, Rose Lalonde," he said, and offered what I assume was a salute. "I guess nobody told you I was assigned here? Don't worry, I'll stay out of your business. Assuming nothing ugly happens in the next night or two, anyway."

"What, no. It would be unconscionably rude of me to let a fine specimen of trollhood like yourself just blend into the background," I said, sliding past him and starting down the hall as he hurried to catch up. "You should probably just call me Rose."

We scurried past the same ImpSec minder in the lobby (did she fail at "how not to be seen" or did she just not care?) and out the door. A few intersections away I found a good-sized open air market. I had only learned the flag fleet dialect of the language before arriving; most of what I overheard was close enough to be intelligible, but there was a lot of variety. It was a joy just to walk through, although poor Vantas spent most of it checking in obscure corners (for signs of the bouncer from the bar, perhaps). I found a stall selling what were basically sarongs, of a style I'd seen a lot of the locals wearing. I picked out a nice skull pattern, persuaded Vantas to admit it complemented my eyes, and haggled the vendor down to two and a half caegars. My dialect may have been upper-class, but my accent was clearly atrocious. At a nearby stall, I sized Vantas up for a smart-casual outfit of patterned tunic and long flowy trousers, but he refused to let me hold it against him to verify the fit. He also looked very offended when I tried to buy it for him, so I made him help me find lunch instead.

The food vendor we ended up at had a sign with the ideographs for "Central Plains Traditional Cuisine", which, while boring, is technically correct; Vantas told me he comes from that region and that the menu on offer was a kind of food his lusus made for him when he was young. It consisted of cold noodles marinated in a sort of pepper-infused oil, with steamed flakes of grubsoy dancing on top from the heat transfer. An acquired taste, if I'm honest, but I made an effort to acquire it, aided by copious amounts of something more or less like lemonade.

In response, I hunted around until I found a stall with a lot of aquariums covered with fine mesh, wherein were swimming some brightly colored animals. I'd seen illustrations before, but they hadn't lived up to the reality. I pretended I was unable to read the sign claiming the vendor's sex parasites had been tested and certified disease free. "Oh, what lovely creatures," I cooed over one of the aquariums. A particularly chubby blue worm wiggled up to the surface and blew a bubble at me. I turned back to Vantas, who was busy trying not to explode. "I had a pet seaworm like these when I was a little girl, you know," I said to him as he struggled to breathe normally.

"I simply must have it," I simpered at the vendor, paying the fifteen caegers he asked (double the marked price) and placing the little plastic carrier in Vantas's open hand. "Don't drop it!" I admonished him, before rushing off to another booth and buying a length of ribbon which I tied around the nookworm. "I'm going to name you Zapperdil," I stage-whispered. Vantas's cheeks were a color I had not seen since I caught my brother in bed with a life-size cardboard standee of himself. I took pity on him and carried the nookworm back to the hotel myself. I tried to convince Vantas to relax, but he would have none of it; duty was duty. So I went in and left him there in the hall.

Jade was equal parts aghast and delighted when I told her about my outing. We set the nookworm on a table and took glamour shots to send to Dave, while she told me more of the intel she'd gathered. In the aftermath of the planetary regent's assassination, threshecution teams and rebels had been waging impressive battles in several of the nearby systems. Luckily the fighting was not close enough to cause us any actual worry and the flag fleet didn't seem to have been delayed, so I would just need to keep myself occupied for a little while longer.

I busied myself until it was quite late by putting my initial cultural notes in order and roughing out an outline for my paper. Jade watched a soap opera about the work and private lives of a team of forensic medical examiners, making ribald commentary and criticizing the scientific accuracy of the show. What a woman.

Later in the evening I adjusted some pillows on the couch to make it more comfortable, but sleep didn't come. I was taunted by visions of Lt. Vantas opening the door to find me covered only in a sheet. I thought about how he might come closer, saying that in order to protect me he would have to stay right next to me. I would reach out and grab his forearm, pulling him closer and running my hands over his broad shoulders, toying with the epaulettes and the blood-red aiguilette. I found my hand drifting to my breast as I imagined him undoing his trousers and letting out his cock (or bulge, as the fleet slang went), just as thick and wriggly as Zapperdil, but a gorgeous crimson red instead of blue. I would touch it and it would coil around my hand. I played with my nipple some more while my other hand found its way into my panties. I imagined Vantas's bulge easing itself into my pussy (I'd tell him to think of it like a troll nook) the way my fingers were gently reaching into me. He'd be so gentle, not wanting to risk hurting his charge, so I'd have to take control and show him how I like it. "Oh god, oh god, Vantas!" I cried out, and with a loud crash the door to the suite burst open and he was standing there looking right at me with my hand down my underwear.

"Oh fuck," he muttered. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I thought you were in distress," he said, pointedly looking away. "I'll go back outside."

"You don't have to," I invited. If anything, that made him flush more. He stammered something about duty and backed out of the room, closing the door as much as it could be given the damage. I tried to finish up quietly, but I found the mood had been spoiled, so instead I waited impatiently for sweet oblivion to claim me.

I awoke in the evening to find Jade quietly repairing the damaged door. "You don't have to do that," I pointed out, but she waved that aside.

"I get bored," she said simply. "There's only so much a girl can do from this suite. I tried sleeping, but it's not the same when you don't actually get rest from it.

"Anyway!" she changed the subject, spinning her holo self around to look at me. "Did you get to touch his butt?"

"Alas, his exquisite butt remains woefully untouched. I shall no doubt die an old maid, passing my days wistfully with thoughts of that undiscovered country, that marvel of the world, Lt. Vantas's ass." I collapsed dramatically back onto the increasingly misused couch. "And his shoulders," I added, raising one finger to denote the amendment.

Jade plopped down next to me, sprawling her virtual legs across my lap. "You should try seducing him," she said. "'Oh, Lt. Vantas, I'm dangerously underfucked and I need you to conduct a thorough examination of my body!'"

I rolled my eyes. "He's special forces, not a porn star, Jade. And I have to go out there again tonight and face him. I still haven't gotten any books. I need books."

"You need to get laid, Rose." She walked back over to the door, waggling her butt salaciously. I blew her a raspberry and, with great reluctance, heaved myself off the couch and went to go shower.

Breakfast was the not!scallion pancakes again, with some kind of vegetable juice. Sooner or later I would have to track down something in the same culinary neighborhood as bacon and eggs, I decided. After breakfast, there was nothing for it but to face the music.

"Hey, Jade, you want to come along today?" I asked her. She'd put away her holographic body and was hovering at the window, looking out at the city lights.

"Huh?" She peeled smoothly away from the window and stopped in front of me, eye to little metal ball.

"You said you were bored," I reminded her. "So come on out with me. It'll be fun." I held out a hand and she bobbed into it. I set her on my shoulder.

"What about secrecy?" she asked as I slid my wands into their belt pouch.

"They already know we have anti-grav tech," I responded. "Just don't do anything too flashy and it'll be fine." She chirped a standard drone acknowledgement noise. "Very droll. Come on, you can help me shop for books."

Vantas was still there outside the door, standing at attention. I wondered when or even if he got to sleep. "Good evening," I said brightly. I'd decided to just act like nothing had happened until — unless — Vantas decided to bring it up. Which I was willing to bet he'd rather go nookworm shopping again than do.

For a moment it looked like I was going to lose that bet, but Vantas choked back whatever was on the tip of his tongue. "Good evening," he replied, and followed as I headed down the hallway and out of the hotel.

He kept quiet all the way to the first of the bookshops I'd picked out. I purchased an overview of Alternian 7th fleet cuisine (I found an equivalent book on Central Plains style, but Vantas took it away from me on the grounds that it had been written by a moron) and a decade-old popular history of the Condesce's life (certainly propaganda, but it would be interesting to compare to the modern propaganda being put out). As we walked down the street to the second shop, I managed to draw him out a little.

"I'm not some kind of book _expert_ or anything," he insisted. "I just read a lot. Mostly romance epics, the occasional wiggler's-own-adventure story, some travelogues. That kind of thing."

I raised an eyebrow. "These sound just like human literature, yet just moments ago you claimed Alternian literature is quote uniquely different unquote." Pause for expected interjection — ("It is!") — satisfied smile. "I must insist you show me. This next shop claims the best selection in the whole province; I'm sure you can pick out a few exemplars for me to read." Trap complete.

"Well, okay," he allowed, "even though you probably won't understand all the subtle nuances. I suppose it's my duty to protect you from terrible literature."

I beamed at him. "I would be most grateful, Lt. Vantas," I said.

This bookshop had only the faintest concept of an organizational structure. Sections led seemingly at random up rickety staircases and around corners. The air was thick with the delightful aroma of vintage books. Jade snuck off to explore while Vantas helped me select ten or twenty thick volumes, explaining as he did the various subgenres of moirallegiance novels. "So in 13th century works like _On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moons_ , the formula generally involves a moirallegiance which has become too stale to function properly. The relationship is all-but-over when the romantic hero is tempted by a troll who is a legendarily skilled pacifier, but unfortunately from a wildly wrong blood caste. Dare they find true pity in spite of what society thinks? Usually not, given the censorship standards of the era, but occasionally you find works like _Carpet of leaves_ where the hero ends up in a moirallegiance with a troll of the proper blood color but a suspiciously similar name to the out-of-caste one, the idea generally being that the reader could deliberately misread the ending."

He was genuinely warming to his subject — this is the most he'd said at one time since I met him — and I was really enjoying the lesson, but he cut off abruptly. Moments later I realized what he already had: we were completely alone in the store, without even the sound of the clerk typing at her keyboard. "Get down," he hissed, unholstering his blaster. I pressed myself against the side of a shelf and slid my wands into my hands.

Presently there came a voice from near the entrance. "Threshie, give us the alien and you can live." There was a weird resonance to her words, some kind of subharmonic.

Vantas gritted his teeth and shook his head as if to clear it. "Chucklevoodoos," he whispered to me. "The rebel core is made up of subjugglators. They have a nasty way of getting in your head." He took a quick look over the railing, narrowly dodging a slugthrower blast. "There's ten of them that I could see and a raid team that size is usually backed up by air power. We're probably going to die, but I'll take most of them with me."

"Tick tock, threshie!" came the mocking voice again. "Tick tock! Throw down the alien; it's what we came for."

"Go pail your lusus in the middle of your lawnring!" Vantas shouted back. He was answered by a hail of slugs and energy bolts.

"Time's up!" Two of the cull team came directly up the stairs. I put holes in them while Vantas fired indiscriminately over the railing, scoring a few hits by the sound of things. I heard footsteps on the other staircase and I turned to face them but Vantas was already on it with a headshot, quick and clean.

"Enough of this," I heard someone say downstairs. "Fill 'em with daylight." The sound of the autocannon spinning up gave me just enough warning before Vantas crashed into me and bore me to the floor. Bullets sang through the air above his head, cutting a swath from one side of the store to the other. Then, with a sickening creak, the bookcase fell over on top of us. Vantas grunted from the impact; I had the wind knocked out of me as well. "That's got them," someone cheered.

I heard more footsteps coming up the stairs and I tried to get a wand pointing in that direction, but either I missed or the cull team liked their chances now; the footsteps kept coming. Vantas met my gaze. "For the record," he said, "I wish I'd said yes when you asked me. I'm sorry it's going to end like this."

"Shh," I told him, then yelled as loudly as I could "JADE! FUCK SUBTLETY!"

I heard another crack as Jade went supersonic, followed by the sounds of what I later determined to be a Light Raid/Assault Vehicle undergoing a sudden and complete engine failure. Then she was back again. She lifted the bookcase off us with her effector fields and hurled it over the railing at the cull team leader in the shop doorway. More small pops denoted Jade drilling a neat hole directly through the skull of each of the still-surviving rebels. The bloodbath was over almost before I could react to it.

"What," Vantas began flatly, "in the name of the mothergrub and her many festering nubs was that?" He rolled off me, wincing audibly as he did so. Jade flashed back to us, then projected her body, blowing smoke off the tip of her finger-pistols.

"Lt. Vantas, if you'll help me up I'd be pleased to introduce you to my friend, Jade Harley," I said sweetly.

"Oh, right," he said, lending me his arm, and if he was a bit wobbly on his feet I was gracious enough not to mention it. "But! how? They might as well have been helpless grubsuckers the way you ripped through them. How the hell haven't you wiped us out already?"

"Shh," I told him. "I probably shouldn't tell you this just yet, but you'd find out eventually. We actually stopped making warships a few centuries ago. Your fleets fought our civilian ships at first. Toward the end, we pulled some old warships out of retirement and were starting to produce new ones, but then you had the coup and your new empress sued for peace, so here we are."

"Yep!" Jade added. "Don't worry, you're all too cute to exterminate." She patted Vantas's cheek while he tried to remember how to close his jaw.

"She gets like that," I stage-whispered. "Don't mind her." I gathered up our selections from the floor, left the appropriate number of coins on the wreckage of the shop computer, and talked Jade into carrying them back to the hotel while Vantas and I helped prop each other up. If my hand drifted down towards his glutes from time to time as we walked, nobody said anything and that was just fine with me.

Back at the hotel, I pulled him into the suite before he could say anything. "If you don't want to, you can go back out there and we'll just pretend everything is like it was before." I smiled coyly. "But I think you want to."

"How—" he swallowed. "How does it work, with, y'know," and he gestured to the two of us, members of different species.

I took his hand and pulled him over to the couch. "Let's find out," I said. Over his shoulder I spotted Jade drop the books on a side table and zoom over to the room with all the troll sleeping equipment. I knew a "good luck, have fun" when I saw one. "Now, Lieutenant, you've been a very valiant soldier today. If I tell you what I want you to do to me, will you obey?" He nodded firmly. I unbuttoned my blouse and slid out of it. "Here, put your hands here," I guided. He was awkward at first, more petting my breasts through the bra than anything, but I showed him what I liked and before long he was cupping them gently and teasing first one nipple and then the other. I undid the bra clasp. "Go on, feel underneath the bra," I told him.

"You're so soft," he murmured. I felt a tiny prickle everytime his claws danced around my nipple tips; I arched my back and let the bra fall off. "What are these pointy bits for?" he asked, rubbing my left nipple again. I gave a little moan.

"In the human reproductive cycle, we feed our young with them. However, they're also really fun to play with." I winked and pulled his mouth down to my right breast. I didn't know if he'd put his mouth directly on it; our species might be too different for that. He tried blowing on it; I told him to try kissing it instead. He planted kisses all around my areola, then worked his way into the little valley between my boobs and kissed up and down it. I felt like I was on fire.

"Be a dear and unzip my skirt, won't you?" I lifted my butt just enough for him to slide it down and out of the way, and shimmied out of my panties and had him take those off too. "Well, how do you like it?" I asked him, his head still down between my legs.

"Your nook is very cute," he said, running a finger slowly along my groin, "but where's your bulge?"

"I don't have one," I said simply. "A primitive arrangement, I know, but I make do. Go on; I don't know what you like to do with a nook, but I know mine likes to be stroked and licked, and maybe if you're very good you could put something in it." He started running more kisses down my vulva, humming as he did so (a trick I'd have loved to be able to pull off). I grabbed onto his uniform shoulders and held on, practically riding his face like a toy. "Oh, that's so good!" After a little bit of that he found my clit and kissed it too. I squealed and clenched my legs around him. I knew if I let him do much more of that I'd come all over his face, but I wanted more. I wanted him inside me.

I pulled him back up my body; he took the opportunity to go slowly, planting a trail of kisses from my groin to my collarbone. Underneath his uniform I could feel his muscles shift. I would have loved to see them firsthand but this present was way too beautiful to unwrap just yet. He started to say something but I leaned forward and kissed him. His mouth was different; a strange flavor on his lips from his sweat and mine mingling, a strange texture like scales on his tongue when he frenched me. I sucked greedily on his tongue as my hands worked at his trousers.

He broke away. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"I want your bulge, soldier," I said, and kissed him again. With that distraction I had his trousers unzipped and felt something writhing under my hand.

"There's no pail for your genetic fluid," he objected. "It's going to get everywhere!"

I worked my hand into his underwear and cupped his bulge. It didn't seem as big as Zapperdil, but I could feel more of it sliding out of him every moment. "Humans don't have to worry about that. Our bodies work differently," I informed him. "So hurry up and put your bulge in me!"

He still looked a little dubious, but he allowed me to splay his trouser front open and put his wiggling bulge on full display. I was right; it was crimson red, tapering from pencil-width at the tip to much wider. I spread my legs a little more and brought his bulge, still twining around my finger, down to my pussy.

At first I thought it was going to get lost, and I could see Vantas beginning to get worried too, but little Karkat was a fast learner. It twined inside me, rubbing up against my walls and doubling back on itself. I cluctched his jacket back and pulled Vantas tight against me, as if by holding him so close I could share this feeling with him. I had already been so close, and now this! "Oh yes, oh yes," I whimpered. More of him kept sliding into me and it felt amazing. The feeling built and built, warmth filling up every part of my body, and then finally I came, clenching my arms around him as I did. "Oh yes!" I screamed.

I held Vantas as I rode through my orgasm. When I came fully back to myself, I kissed him again. "Oh yes," I said, "I'm definitely keeping you."

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  TT: The empress has now arrived in orbit and negotiations will soon be opened and meanwhile I'm in bed with her "threshecutioner".   
>  TT: Naturally I am not discomfited in the least by the uncertainty presented in this scenario.   
>  TT: But if I get summarily executed, please do me the favor of resuming the war on my behalf.   
>  TT: ...   
>  TT: Dave, are you still there?   
>  TG: holy shit you have grubscars that's cool i guess   
>  TG: i stroke your grubscars   
>  TT: Dave?   
>  TG: oh fuck wrong window ignore that   
>  TG: that's nothing   
>  TG: that's not a thing that just happened   
>  TT: Dave, are you cybering a member of the species with which we are still technically at war?   
>  TG: absolutely not   
>  TG: maybe   
>  TG: just engaging in a little friendly conversation with a ship captain i met out in sector 413   
>  TT: And by friendly conversation you mean cybersex. Were you even paying attention to anything I said?   
>  TG: sure i was   
>  TG: you were in a bar fight   
>  TG: a super cool bar fight   
>  TT: So you missed almost all of it. I'm starting over from the beginning.   
>  TG: fuck   
>  TT: Maybe this time I can include vivid descriptions of Jade's hacking adventures. You'd like that.   
>  TG: fuck   
> 


End file.
